However, the effects of the attack on the forecasts cannot be ruled out, the Hamburger said on Saturday night. Operating profit is expected to continue growing significantly after high costs weighed on 2022. At the start of the new year, it was only said that it had gone well. Details should then be given with the half-year figures at the beginning of August. EVOTEC recently had to leave the MDAX due to the cyber attack delaying the publication of the certified annual report for 2022, but is now likely to return to the index of medium-sized stocks in the near future. EVOTEC expects this for June 19 in the course of a so-called Fast Entry.
“In response to the criminal cyber attack, EVOTEC took immediate action to contain and remediate the attack by taking its outward-facing systems offline,” it said. But now a quick return to full productivity and business recovery is expected.
Looking ahead to the first quarter, EVOTEC highlighted several extensions and expansions of development partnerships, such as in neurology with pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb and in immune-based therapies with Janssen. With such important cooperations behind it, the company hopes for a better run again.
Specifically, the management calculates for 2023 with an expected increase in sales to 820 to 840 million euros with an adjusted operating result increase of up to 28 percent to 115 to 130 million euros.
The prospects are underpinned by another cooperation that was announced in May. The US subsidiary Just – EVOTEC Biologics and the American subsidiary of the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, Sandoz, agreed to work together on the development and subsequent production of several copycat drugs. EVOTEC receives an upfront payment in the tens of millions. Depending on the success, much more money can flow.
This is an important step for the drug researcher, because the group has invested a lot of money in the construction of a state-of-the-art production site for its subsidiary Just – EVOTEC Biologics in Redmond in the US state of Washington. Another so-called Jpod plant is being built in Toulouse, France.
CEO Werner Lanthaler advertised that the technology of his US subsidiary, which was acquired in 2019, would take the production of biologics to a new level and allow them to be produced extremely quickly and cost-effectively. But the start-up in the USA was initially difficult – EVOTEC had more capacities than customers. However, Lahntaler was convinced that this could change this year – the outlook for the year is also based on this.
And Lanthaler also sees the medium-term goals underpinned by the Sandoz cooperation. This means sales growth to more than one billion euros and an adjusted operating result of more than 300 million euros in 2025.
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HAMBURG (dpa-AFX)
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